Software Process Activities

Second Lecture
By
Dr. Ahmed Majid

1
Software process activities

 Software specification, where customers and engineers

define the software that is to be produced and the
constraints on its operation.
 Software development, where the software is designed
and programmed.
 Software validation, where the software is checked to
ensure that it is what the customer requires.
 Software evolution, where the software is modified to
reflect changing customer and market requirements.

2
General issues that affect most software

 Heterogeneity
 Increasingly, systems are required to operate as distributed
systems across networks that include different types of computer
and mobile devices.
 Business and social change
 Business and society are changing incredibly quickly as
emerging economies develop and new technologies become
available. They need to be able to change their existing software
and to rapidly develop new software.
 Security and trust
 As software is intertwined with all aspects of our lives, it is
essential that we can trust that software.

3
Software engineering diversity

 There are many different types of software system and

there is no universal set of software techniques that is
applicable to all of these.
 The software engineering methods and tools used
depend on the type of application being developed, the
requirements of the customer and the background of the
development team.

4
Application types

 Stand-alone applications
 These are application systems that run on a local computer,
such as a PC. They include all necessary functionality and do
not need to be connected to a network.
 Interactive transaction-based applications
 Applications that execute on a remote computer and are
accessed by users from their own PCs or terminals. These
include web applications such as e-commerce applications.
 Embedded control systems
 These are software control systems that control and manage
hardware devices. Numerically, there are probably more
embedded systems than any other type of system.

5
Application types

 Batch processing systems

 These are business systems that are designed to process data
in large batches. They process large numbers of individual
inputs to create corresponding outputs.
 Entertainment systems
 These are systems that are primarily for personal use and which
are intended to entertain the user.
 Systems for modeling and simulation
 These are systems that are developed by scientists and
engineers to model physical processes or situations, which
include many, separate, interacting objects.

6
Application types

 Data collection systems

 These are systems that collect data from their environment using
a set of sensors and send that data to other systems for
processing.
 Systems of systems
 These are systems that are composed of a number of other
software systems.

7
Software engineering fundamentals

 Some fundamental principles apply to all types of

software system, irrespective of the development
techniques used:
 Systems should be developed using a managed and understood
development process. Of course, different processes are used
for different types of software.
 Dependability and performance are important for all types of
system.
 Understanding and managing the software specification and
requirements (what the software should do) are important.
 Where appropriate, you should reuse software that has already
been developed rather than write new software.

8
Software engineering and the web

 The Web is now a platform for running application and

organizations are increasingly developing web-based
systems rather than local systems.
 Cloud computing is an approach to the provision of
computer services where applications run remotely on
the ‘cloud’.
 Users do not buy software buy pay according to use.

9
 Web software engineering

 Software reuse is the dominant approach for constructing

web-based systems.
 When building these systems, you think about how you can
assemble them from pre-existing software components and systems.
 Web-based systems should be developed and delivered
incrementally.
 It is now generally recognized that it is impractical to specify all the
requirements for such systems in advance.
 User interfaces are constrained by the capabilities of web
browsers.
 Technologies such as AJAX allow rich interfaces to be created within
a web browser but are still difficult to use. Web forms with local
scripting are more commonly used.
10
Web-based software engineering

 Web-based systems are complex distributed systems

but the fundamental principles of software engineering
discussed previously are as applicable to them as they
are to any other types of system.
 The fundamental ideas of software engineering,
discussed in the previous section, apply to web-based
software in the same way that they apply to other types
of software system.

11
Key points

 Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is

concerned with all aspects of software production.
 Essential software product attributes are maintainability,
dependability and security, efficiency and acceptability.
 The high-level activities of specification, development,
validation and evolution are part of all software
processes.
 The fundamental notions of software engineering are
universally applicable to all types of system
development.

12
Key points

 There are many different types of system and each

requires appropriate software engineering tools and
techniques for their development.
 The fundamental ideas of software engineering are
applicable to all types of software system.

13
14